San Jose City Council to Revisit Library Porn Filters

Councilman: Lack of filters made city libraries 'magnet for men viewing porn.'

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The San Jose City Council, after a unanimous vote by its Rules and Open Government Committee, will reconsider its policy against Internet filters on library computers at its June 17 meeting.

The committee approved the upcoming reconsideration last week, despite objections from San Jose State University, which jointly runs the city's main library, and the release of a new report that says filtering technology blocks content used for legitimate research while allowing pornographic sites to be viewed.

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The call for another look at the library policy was prompted by San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant, who argued that unfiltered Internet access has turned the city's libraries into a "magnet for men viewing porn and exposing themselves in public."

Constant also said filtering technology has improved and is used by about half of the nation's public library systems.

However, San Jose Library Director Jane Light recently released a report on the effectiveness of four Internet filtering systems and deemed none fully effective. The report said the filters' overall average success rate in blocking objectionable material while allowing legitimate information was only 76 percent.